Winter's Here

Bloody hell, it's getting cold up here!

'Tis the Season

I am suffering from chronic smugness.

The reason for my self-satisfying aura is... I've completed my Christmas shopping - AND IT'S STILL BLOODY OCTOBER!!!
How organised am I?

It's a world shopping record in my house and I'm so smug I'm telling everyone. There's even a pinch of double-smugness because I bought everything from a charity website. So, not only are my friends and family going to receive all manner of very useful, hand-crafted baskets from Nepal (or something very similar) but I've helped save the planet. A wee bit anyway. Well, at least my conscience is clear. Ok sod it, I just couldn't be bothered battling it out with the moronic hordes in shopping centres all buying useless pieces of crap for equally useless relatives.

I did it all over two hours a couple of nights ago and now I await the delivery of a huge parcel with presents for everyone. I can't wait to open the huge box (let's face it , there aren't many things more exciting than opening a big box). Only, I know I'm going to be a bit disappointed when I realise none of the box's contents are for me. I'll probably reward my own generosity by popping into town and making an unnecessary purchase - like a new screwdriver. Woo! Rock 'n' roll!!!

Wee Break

Like a midget in the mail room, this will be a short post.

I am on holiday.

I am not, however, sunning myself on a tropical beach, tapping away at the keyboard from under the welcoming shade of a mature palm tree, lavishing in the five star resort's wireless broadband connection.

No. I am at home, staring at the grey mist outside the window, mulling over which of the 45,332 odd jobs around the house I will do next. And I still have another week and a half of a work-free existence.

So far today, I've been an electrician, housekeeper, picture hanger, dishwasher and joiner (carpeneter to the uninitiated). And it's all been done with my usual half-arsed approach. My motto has always been: "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing badly, quickly and bad tempered." I have exceeded at this.

Following this brief bacon roll respite, I will resume my duties as super-husband and become a plumber, computer technician, interor designer and serial shopper.

There's every chance I will also become drinker.

I think I deserve it.

Happy Snapper

I am a sometime amateur photographer.

(This does not mean I take photos of the neighbour's wife in compromising positions after one too many G&Ts - there was the once but we'll gloss over that)

Anyway apropos of nothing, here is a photograph.

I was really just trying to prove that I could upload a photo.

There.

Book 'em!

I miss the train.
(not through poor timing but longing)

For the past week I have ditched my usual walk-train-coffee-book routine in favour of the car-swear-sweat-stress routine.
I have had to be in work at a ridiculously early hour this week, which I'm pretty sure is illegal everywhere except North Korea, which means I have had to drive to the big city each morning rather than the more relaxed train ride.

The thing I liked best about the train was I got to catch up on some reading. I'm a sucker for those 3 for 2 deals in high street bookshops and have a huge pile of unread literature littering the house. It makes me look very well-read. Until someone says: "Oh, I see you've read The Revenge of the Ninja Geisha!* Didn't you find the post-modern narrative an illuminating concept, and so daring of the author to kill off the protagonist in Chapter Two?"

"Mmmm... s'pose," I usually answer, quickly changing the subject for fear they realise I haven't got around the reading it yet.

In the past few weeks, I've managed to remedy the situation and ticked a few books off my list. So, here is a list of the books what I have read recently and what I thought of them. I just thought you might be interested.

Feel free to indulge in a high-brow tete a tete about their individual merits. Or not.

As Used On The Famous Nelson Mandela by Mark Thomas.
I quite like a bit of revealing non-fiction every now and then and it gives me an enormous sense of smugness to know that I now know more about the illegal arms trade than the bloke sitting next to me on the train reading the latest Dan Brown.
Verdict: A shocking eye-opener which you really must read. Don't wait for the film, it could be a while.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.
A post-Columbine tale about a mother and her struggle to deal with the aftermath of a high school massacre - by her son.
Verdict: A bit pretentious at times but ultimately a good read.

Saturday by Ian McEwan
One day in the life of a posho neurosurgeon and his posho family, set against the backdrop of the anti-war demo.
Verdict: You'll learn a lot about brain surgery -and posho families.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
A previous Booker Prize winner, it's more poshos, this time Eighties Tory MPs and their offspring. The protagonist is a young, gay writer who embarks "on a journey of discovery." Bit disturbed by the fact that my mother in-law recommended this one as it contains a lot of graphic gay scenes, particularly "bumshoving" (his phrase, not mine).
Verdict: A good yarn but beware of strange looks from the person sitting next to you on the train, reading over your shoulder.

I haven't decided on what to start next.

Tune in next time to Stark's Book Reviews and find out more...



*Don't look for it, I made it up.

Aquaman

I went swimming today.

It's the first time I've pulled on a pair of trunks in anger since I stayed at a hotel in Liverpool in the summer.*
I was relieved to see that I'd lost none of my fish-like attributes. Why, at one point I held my face and head under the water for almost five seconds without spluttering and wiping a trail of snot from my nose. I am truly an aqua-athlete.

At one point, I saw the swimming instructor who was teaching the kiddies point in my direction and shake her head, doubtlessly telling her children that no matter how hard they trained, they'd never be as good as "that man over there."

Like a true aqua-athlete, I jumped effortlessly out of the pool, strutted by the swimming class with a smug sense of self-satisfaction.

I WAS NOT holding my stomach in - that's just the way it looks, OK. It comes with having so much 'swimming muscles'.


*The hotel had a pool, I wasn't just parading about the room in swimming trunks.

Life's Hard

Want to know what's the hardest thing in life?

Finding the right partner to spend the rest of your life with?
A cinch.

Embarking on a career which is both financially rewarding and morally satisfactory?
A piece of piss.

Remaining healthy and guilt-free in a world full of extremely tempting bad habits?
A walk in the park.

The hardest thing life will ever throw at us is... painting a white ceiling white.

Seriously, I've done three of the buggers recently and there's nothing tougher. How do you know where you've stopped painting when the paint you're applying is the same colour as the one that's already there?

I've tried the light on-light off approach and it makes little difference. It's simply the most frustrating thing you'll ever had to do.

I'll tell you how you know if you've missed a patch. You finish painting, wash and dry the roller and brush, tidy up and sit down for a cup of tea. 24 hours later when you pop in to marvel at your handiwork, you'll see several patches of slightly faded white. The bits that you missed. That's how you see them - when you're lying on your back, kicking and screaming in frustration wishing you'd never started because you knew deep down - no matter what anyone else told you - that it didn't need blooody painting in the first place.

Ah, pathetic

To be frank, I just haven't had the energy to post this week at all. Sorry.

It reminds me of a similar lack of enthusiasm when I was an "angry young man."

I wanted to establish an organisation called The Anti-Apathy League - encouraging people to "get involved" in anything from local politics to charity work.

But I couldn't be bothered.

Groundhog Day

I am living in the film Groundhog Day.

Except I'm not a television weather man and I've no interest in Andie MacDowell.

Since I started catching the train to work a few weeks ago, every day is identical - right down to the people I pass on my way to the train station. No kidding, it's becoming very weird. Every day I pass:

The two identical builder's vans, who pull out of the same junction in the road at the same time, so I always have to wait a few seconds before crossing.

The same three nursery nurses on their way to work. The one on the left always wears a face that says 'I'd rather be anywhere else than here this morning.'

The middle-aged woman chaining her bike to the park railing before heading into the park for an early morning run.

A different middle-aged woman (I'm beginning to think they're the only ones who like to get up so early) walking her little black terrier-like dog. Sorry, I don't 'do' dogs so it could be a Giant Blood Retriever for all I know.

Mr Telegraph - older man carrying the Daily Telegraph under his left arm and a miserable look on his face.

Mr Guardian - older man carrying the Guardian under his right arm and a gentle look on his face - like in the Werther's Originals advert.

(I think they should get together over morning coffee and have a animated political debate)

Mr High Visibility Jacket - younger man who carries the same Farmfoods bag (don't all nutters?) and wears a yellow hi-vis jacket and waves to people who aren't there. I quite like him, he seems the happiest out of us all.

I've even began, unwittingly, to sit in exactly the same seat, in the same train carriage every morning, pulling out the same flask of coffee. If I didn't bring out a different book every week, I would be seriously worried.

I think I might be in a Lost-type experiment and there are hidden cameras everywhere - and a bloke sitting on a desert island somewhere recording all my moves.

Or maybe the people above all just leave their house at the same time I do every morning.